Sorry guys......
....So when things at the party slowed down, I bailed. I hoped the bird(if it was dead) hadn't died in the sun as it was heating up and I sure didn't want the heat to ruin the meat......
.....It's always bizarre following the string on a flying bird. It's in treetops and it lays on top of everything instead of under and thru everything. I knew from the start that where this bird had flown,it would have been impossible,and I mean impossible to find this bird without the string. My hope was that when the string stopped,it had meant the bird came down and not the string breaking or the arrow falling out....but I was confident.....
....the start of the string.....
...I was lucky that the bird had flown almost parallel to the edge of the orchard. I was able to follow the string from about 50yds away with the help of my Leica's. If I'd of had to follow the line of the string, I'd still be breaking brush and about dead!
Further along on the string....
After about 100yds I could see the string was getting tighter and it was getting harder to see. It was also getting closer to the edge now too,only about 20yds in now instead of 50yrs or so. It was also heading to a cut out in the orchard. I had my fingers crossed that it had dyed as it flew over the open orchard!
Further along.....some of the thickest stuff you'll ever see!......
I decided to jump forward and see if the string was in the orchard ahead. Dang,no string....that means I'd have to go in and find the end!
Again using my bino's a much as possible I finally could tell the the string dove down about 10yds short of the orchard. It had to be right in front of me, but there was now way to possibly see anything in there. I decided to test the waters first and collected some dropped pears and pitched a half dozen into where it looked like the string plunged into the briars.....no movement or noise at all.....I nocked an arrow and slowly waded in....after breaking in about 5yds I saw my arrow right in front of me,but I still couldn't see a turkey. I had to use my bino's from 5 yrd away to see the bird.....this is waht it looked like....yes there's a turkey in there!
here it is a little cleared out.....it was so thick it never made it to the ground! It was hung up upside down in the briars...
It had apparently died in flight and crash landed,plunging into the briars....I had my bird!!
Without the tracker I wouldn't have had a clue!